Great minds, like heaven, are
pleased in doing good,
Though the ungrateful subjects of
their favors
Are barren in return.—Rowe.
He who, in questions of
right, virtue, or duty, sets himself above all ridicule, is truly
great, and shall laugh in the end with truer mirth than ever he was
laughed at.—Lavater.
The greatest
man is he who chooses the right with invincible
resolution, who resists the sorest temptations from within and without,
who bears the heaviest burdens cheerfully, who is calmest in storms and
most fearless under menace and frowns, whose reliance on truth, on
virtue, on God, is most unfaltering. I believe this greatness to be
most common among the multitude, whose names are never heard.—Channing.
No
sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than
disbelief in great men.—Carlyle.
If the title
of great man ought to be reserved for him who cannot be
charged with an indiscretion or a vice, who spent his life in
establishing the independence, the glory and durable prosperity of his
country; who succeeded in all that he undertook, and whose successes
were never won at the expense of honor, justice, integrity, or by the
sacrifice of a single principle—this title will not be denied to
Washington.—Sparks.
He
only is great who has the habits of greatness; who, after performing
what none in ten thousand could accomplish, passes on like Samson, and
"tells neither father nor mother of it."—Lavater.
He who comes
up to his own idea of greatness must always have had a
very low standard of it in his mind.—Hazlitt.
In life, we
shall find many men that are great, and some men that
are good, but very few men that are both great and good.—Colton.
A really
great man is known by three signs,—generosity in the
design, humanity in the execution, and moderation in success.—Bismarck.
Nothing can
make a man truly great but being truly good and
partaking of God's holiness.—Matthew Henry.
The greatest
truths are the simplest; so are the greatest men.
Some are
born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness
thrust upon them.—Shakespeare.
No man has
come to true greatness who has not felt in some degree
that his life belongs to his race, and that what God gives him, He
gives him for mankind.—Phillips Brooks.
Nothing is
more simple than greatness; indeed, to be simple is to be
great.—Emerson.
Great truths are portions of the
soul of man;
Great souls are the portions of
eternity.—Lowell.
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